Jimmy Harmon

I ask my wife if she plans on going to some of the sales on Black Friday this year. “What fun would it be to go by myself” she says. “Who said anything about going by yourself”, I tell her boldly!

For me, Black Friday has always been me and the kids sleeping in while my wife and her sister get some good deals on a few Christmas presents. Since moving to Arkansas, we’ve managed a few times to go to Houston for Thanksgiving where her sister lives, but this year, it just didn’t work out that way, so Black Friday shopping took on a sense of responsibility this year.

We made arrangements for the girls to stay with Grandma while my wife and I went looking for a few deals. After getting stuffed, we went home and got the girls ready for their sleepover with Grandma, then my wife took them to Grandma’s house. The plan was for my wife to come back home, we look online at some places we wanted to go and then then get some sleep before heading out for some fun shopping together.

The first part of the plan went great! The kids were gone, my wife and I were openly talking about presents for the girls, which is something we usually have to do by text or email, but one thing we hadn’t really planned on was happening… time! It was starting to get late and we were watching a Christmas movie before going to bed.

We were faced with a decision… wanting to be at Best Buy by 3:00 am on Black Friday, we needed to leave no later than 2:30 am. It was already after midnight, so staying up or getting an hour of sleep was really starting to become a debate. Needless to say, we decided to lay down for an hour and 45 minutes. I hit the snooze once, so it was really closer to 2 hours. We didn’t make it by 3:00 am, so we decided Target was our best bet.

We drove by Best Buy and, as expected, the crowds were already lined up with more people running to join from at least 3 different parking lots. It was almost 4:15 am, so people were really starting to make their moves now. We just kept heading to Target.

The parking lot wasn’t as full as Best Buy, but trust me, they were starting to come pretty quick by this time. We sat in the truck for a little while waiting to decide if we wanted out in the cold, and it turns out, another 200 people probably landed in line before we finally got the desire to get out in the cold. Not the biggest mistake, but a mistake none the less. We should have jumped in line as soon as we got there.

Standing in line for 45 minutes is always fun when there are people involved. Some of them were in pajamas still. Some looked like they just rolled out of bed and went straight to the car… It was interesting to say the least!

Once 5:00 am rolled around, it took about 3 minutes for us to make it in the store. It was awesome! I’ve never seen people running in a store before! Next time my wife and I will probably forget about the shopping cart and sprint directly to what were looking for. Maybe I can wear some type of fuzzy slippers that will allow me to slide on the floor, adding a little drama to the already dramatized store! For fun, of course.

We went to the toy section via 20 different isles and finally found what we were looking for. VICTORY!!! Or was it? Upon closer inspection, the scooters we were looking for were actually all gone. The ones we had in the cart were $35.00 and the ones we wanted were $17.00! So to justify getting the more expensive scooters, we established the fact that they had more options than the cheaper ones. At least we got something out of it.

After looking and purchasing a few more items for the kids, we stopped at Best Buy and Walmart and headed home for the day! After getting some much needed sleep, my wife picked up the kids and the rest of the day went pretty smooth. After reflecting on my first Black Friday, I have to admit, it was pretty wild.

Can’t wait until next year!

I’m reading an article in the Arkansas News online addition, and I notice something that most of us would consider a little strange.

Let me explain something first. As I’m sure you know, Wal-Mart recently laid off between 700 and 800 employees. The normal logic to this would be for us to assume that Wal-Mart is having financial difficulties, right? I mean, why else would you lay off that many employees if you weren’t losing money?

Now I’ll explain what I was reading this morning. It seems that Wal-Mart topped over $400 Billion in annual sales.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profit fell to $3.79 billion, down from $4.1 billion in the year earlier period. That’s a loss of $310 million for the same period last year. Quarterly revenues rose, however, to $109.1 billion from $107.3 billion a year ago. This means they made $1.8 billion more during this quarter than the same quarter last year.

For the full year, the world’s largest retailer saw its revenues top $405.6 billion, up from $378.5 billion one year ago. Full year net income jumped 5 percent to $13.4 billion compared to $12.7 billion in the previous fiscal year. That’s an increase of $700 million for the year.

On February 1, 2009,  Mike Duke assumed the title of CEO, replacing longtime leader Lee Scott. Were the layoffs some type of power trip? Were the layoffs even needed? Was this a way for Wal-Mart to boost an already huge profit? Is this a way for Wal-Mart to lead the country in the bounce back from the recession? After all, if Wal-Mart starts showing huge profits, then the United States economy must be doing pretty good, right?

Here’s the way I see it.

Wal-Mart didn’t have to layoff anyone at their corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. I can’t predict the future of Wal-Mart, but I can predict that people will always need food, clothes and the many other items they sell. It wouldn’t seem normal to me if my wife didn’t tell me two or three times per week that we needed something from Wal-Mart. It’s a fact! Who knows, maybe their outlook for 2010 looks so bad that they had to start laying off people now in order to keep up. I honestly doubt this is the case.

Here’s another fact for you. Wal-Mart’s full year net income jumped 5 percent and they still laid off almost 800 corporate employees. What does this actually mean? Was this just an opportunity for them to cut a bunch of employees who didn’t make sense for the company? If that’s the case, as much as I hate to say it, it should make us all feel a little better. Why? Because it shows that Wal-Mart layoffs weren’t because of the economy after all, and it’s not as bad as it seems here in Northwest Arkansas.

I’ll probably do a couple of follow-ups on this. It’s got me interested in exactly how our local economy is doing. It’s also got me interested in seeing just how corporations are trying to play the American people by using the current economic recession to their advantage.

You know things are getting pretty bad when Walmart starts to lay off employees.  CEO Mike Duke announced yesterday that Walmart would lay off approximately 700 – 800 employees from the Walmart home office in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart has always been a stronghold here in the Northwest Arkansas area and I’m sure it’s one of the hardest decisions CEO Mike Duke will have to make.

With 2.2 million employees worldwide, 700 – 800 seems like a small number. When you take into consideration what it does to the local economy, it takes on a whole new meaning. The most recent economic reports indicate that the 3rd quarter of 2008 saw a slight decrease in Bentonville’s unemployment rate to 4.11% from 4.52% in 2007. The Walmart layoffs will have a definitive impact on both the economy and the unemployment rate.

Even with the layoffs, Walmart spokesman David Tovar says the company plans to add employees at retail stores across the country, according to the Associated Press. Since most of the layoffs are coming from the home office in Bentonville, the skill level of the newly unemployed is probably a little higher than that of a retail worker. Nonetheless, I wonder if Walmart tried offered the jobs to the ones they’re letting go. It would be at least somewhat of an initiative. I wouldn’t expect many of them to take jobs in a California or New York Walmart, but it would be an excellent gesture.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what it does to our local economy. Northwest Arkansas is a strong community. I believe that if there’s one community in the country that can beat the odds, it’s Northwest Arkansas!

So they’ve passed the stimulus package… now what? The Dow took a dive of more than 380 points and the economy still looks as bad today as it did yesterday. In fact, the economy looks worse today then it did 2 months ago. They spent so much time fighting over the amount of the package that many businesses looking to gain from the stimulus package are going to fail even if they get it.

I’m not a statistician, so I can’t tell the difference between the Great Depression of 1929 and today. All I know is we’re on the brink of economic failure that could potentially devastate the complete world economy. If you think I’m kidding, just look at what the markets are doing each and ever time our leaders go on TV and state how bad the economy is doing. If we fail economically, the world will fail economically! It’s as simple as that!

President Obama says he wants the bill on his desk by February 16th, 2009. Will it happen? Will it really make a difference?